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Thursday, May 2, 2013

Limpa (Swedish Rye Bread) Recipe

Limpa is probably one of the most known Swedish Breads. Growing up I
remember limpa as every day bread. I think today you can find all
kinds of recipes for this bread, with anise, orange peel, syrup,
molasses etc. But I like it to have it as my regular bread and not
sweet. It is a really solid bread and very simple to make. I don’t
think you can mess this bread up. But it is delicious, easy to freeze,
and holds fresh for days if you keep it in foil or plastic. This recipe
makes 3 loafs, I usually freeze two of them. Also I do not use a bread
pan for this only a cookie sheet.

In a saucepan boil water, sugar, caraway, fennel, butter, orange rind
for about 3 minutes. Then let cool until lukewarm. Once that is
lukewarm add the yeast and stir thoroughly.

In a separate bowl mix the all purpose flour and the whole wheat
flour. Using a mixer add 6 cups of the flour into the mixer and then
pour in the yeast mixture. It becomes a soft dough. Once that mixture
in well mixed place it in a buttered bowl and let it rise until double
in size, about 1 ½ hours.

After it has doubled in size punch down on the dough and work in the
rest of the flour and salt either using your hands or a stand mixer.

Once that is mixed in well enough put it back into a buttered bowl and let it rise again until it doubles in size.
After that on a powdered kitchen counter start kneading the dough
until smooth, and form into 3 loaves that you can place on a cookie
sheet with parchment/wax paper underneath. It is fine if they are all
next to each other. These will not fit very well in a bread pan unless
you make them into smaller sizes.

Let them rise again for about 30-45 minutes. They will be touching each other at this point but that is ok.
Bake at 350 F for about 1 hour, you may have to cover them with foil for the last 15 min if they do get too dark.